Another September
by CarlileLovesAnime
Summary: Every year on his birthday, Gokudera traditionally shuts himself away from the world, so that he can be left to drown in his sorrow peacefully. But his friends have other plans. Gokudera-centric, oneshot. Happy belated birthday, Gokudera.


**Yay! I finally got my Gokudera birthday fic done! ... A day late. I suck. **

**Sorry I haven't been updating my other stuff recently. The computer situation at my house is a big mess right now. Plus all the homework - kill me now! Buuuut at least I got this done, right? **

**Anyway, as you could have guessed, this is a birthday-themed Gokudera fic. I'm sorry. I can't help but paint him as a tragic character. **

**I don't own KHR, or any of the other specific things mentioned here. Oh and, happy belated birthday, Gokudera! ilu**

0o.o0o.o0

Another September. 

The red numbers on the screen blink as 8:59 turns to 9:00. The alarm has gone unsounded. A pack of cigarettes lies mostly full between the clock and the lamp on the end table. Beside the table, something stirs from deep beneath the blanket prone on the futon couch. A silver head grinds its side into the cushion.

His gray eyes can't bring themselves to open. Then they'll see the lines of light along the tops of the blinds. He can't get out of bed, because beyond a dead mind is something else to do.

On the coffee table is a cheap black laptop covered in stickers; closed. A Blackberry is all the way over on the counter in the kitchenette. It hasn't been touched, it hasn't rung, and it hasn't been turned on since last night. There are far more locks on the door than needed, but they're each active: the chain spans across a hinge, the deadbolt is unoccupied, even a metal bar is jammed over the bottom panel further out than from one side to the other.

Navy pants, jacket and tie are folded sloppily and on top of the dresser in the corner, accompanied by a white shirt with all the buttons undone. Shoes and a bag have been dropped to the floor. Last night's dishes are piled in the flooded sink. The bathroom door is jammed open by used towels. Trash – mostly balled up sheets of paper – has risen near to the top of the garbage can. Countless unlit sticks of dynamite litter the entire two-room apartment. The earphone cords plugged into the red iPod-Nano at the side of the computer on the coffee table are tangled and hanging off the edge. Various pieces of jewelry are draped over the handles of drawers. No light comes from the single lightbulb in the ceiling. Books are lined and stacked on the shelves after shelves against the plain wall; they were once alphabetized within larger sections of Japanese Literature, Italian Literature, and Nonfiction. Frameless glasses are folded shut and laying beside his phone. The stand on which the portable keyboard is kept has collapsed in on itself over by the back of the room, the bench in front of it empty. There is a climactic episode premiering right now of that award-winning drama on the channel the TV is preset to, not that one can tell from the black screen and silence. _SEPTEMBER_ is written at the top of the calendar on the fridge; the first eight days are X-ed out and the ninth is circled in red. It's a Friday. There's a math test and a book report due today in school.

An orange bottle lies open and on its side on the end table, with little blue antidepressants perpetually spilling out. The label is illegitimate.

Normally, Gokudera keeps his apartment impeccably tidy, as it is tiny and thus gets out of control easily. At this time on any other Friday he'd probably be in school, suffering from boredom in all his classes only to talk with his friends during breaks. But here he is alone in his shell, and everything is a mess. Also, normally, he would care. Not today.

Birthdays have always been a time of sentiment for Gokudera. Come to think of it, he's never known why it's a thing worth celebrating. It makes no sense. You're one year older, and one step closer to dying. Let's break out the champagne and blow out the candles. This cynicism rings especially for Gokudera, who has always considered September Ninth not to be the day of his beginning, but the day of another's ending. And what is there to celebrate about that?

Gokudera squeezes a pillow around his ears, trying to keep his thoughts in. Under the covers, he lets the blackness eat him from the inside out. Piano-sounding background music usually streams in the back of his mind, subconsciously played out by twitching fingers; smog enters his lungs regularly from brown and white sticks; every day he sees the bright, shining faces of his friends, and he can feel their warmth and love sink into his heart. Now he can't hear anything; he breathes the clean air that stings his throat; he sees only the inside of his eyelids, and there is no love. Only a hole in his heart that, no matter how much anyone tries, will never be filled, and it's open today, bleeding the endless supply of suffering he's built up over his now sixteen years of life. It saps the energy from him. He is always veiled by a protective layer of anger and duty. There's nothing left but his raw depression. Gokudera tries to keep it all together, to hold it all in, yet there it is, out in the open and he _hates _it, he _hates_ the feeling he gets every year on his birthday, like clockwork. It cannot be ignored or calmed. He's broken, frightened, and lonely; he's been that way as long as he can remember, deep down, but the difference is that he has no distractions from this demon anymore. There's nothing to prove, to no one. He's utterly alone and can't hide it like that. He doesn't even try. And come to find every September tenth morning, when it's all done, he hasn't healed at all. He just slaps on the Bandaid – a fake smile, an angry shout and a busy job – so his scars don't show. Like _nothing ever happened yesterday, what do you mean I was gone?_

He just shivers once under the blanket and pulls it up to his neck, and maybe he can sleep through a little of this day, so the feeling can pass sooner, so for just a while, he can be numb.

A growl resonates against the laminate countertop, followed by a ping. Gokudera's ears tingle. He pretends he couldn't hear the noise from inside his pillow shelter, until it repeats.

He sighs. _I thought I turned that thing off,_ he thinks from the back corner of his mind. _And isn't the battery dead? _

Another ping. Gokudera's grip on the pillow slackens. Another, and he flops almost all the way out from under his covers. Another, and he brushes the blanket off of his body, sits up with great effort, and presses his fingertips into his eyes. Another. He approaches his phone from halfway across the room like he has forgotten how to walk. He fumbles for a few seconds with his glasses before they are secured on his face.

His eyes find the power button before his finger floats over to it, but the screen glows black and dark red. Six new text messages – scratch that, seven now. He blinks at the words slowly, as if to tell the thing that he isn't in the mood to talk to anyone and that it should shut up and stay off like it's supposed to.

But something echoes out from his deepest consciousness: something short and scrawny with big brown hair and bigger brown eyes. His lips thin worriedly. _Yes, they could be from the Tenth, and at the number and rate they're coming in, it can't be something good. _He decides to consider them.

**Takeshi Yamamoto: **happy bday dude :)

Gokudera squints at the message as the phone vibrates again. He almost wants to turn his phone off right then and there. He can't recall ever telling Yamamoto what his birthday is, and even more so, he specifically remembers saying that Yamamoto can only call or text him if it's an emergency. He scrolls up to the next message as yet another makes its way in.

**Haru Miura: **Happy birthday!

He never told Haru about today, either. His brow furrows in suspicion.

**Ryohei Sasagawa: **FELLOW VIRGO! HAPPY EXTREME BIRTHDAYYYYY!11

He thinks for a minute before remembering, _Oh yeah, Turf Head's birthday was August 26, so we do have the same sign._ But must he type everything in all-caps?

Even more messages come in. He can't understand what's going on.

**Kyoko Sasagawa: **happy birthday :3

**P. Shitt: **OMG its ur birthday yaaaaayy so awesome

**Unknown: **ushishi~ happy birthday~ it's the prince~ don't ask how I got your number~

(He deletes that one.)

**Lambo: **LAMBO SAN CAN TTLY USE A FONE! gappy birrhday

**Bianchi: **Happy birthday, Hayato! luv u

(Bianchi's is accompanied by a picture of a rather attractive chocolate cake.)

**Shamal: **happy birthday, kid.

**Kyoya Hibari: **happy bird-day. herbivore.

**Reborn: **Don't push yourself too hard. Happy birthday.

**Chrome Dokuro: **.:happy birthday gokudera-kun:.

**Fuuta: **Hayato-nii! Happy birthday!

**Basil:** may you have a pleasant anniversary of your birth, lord gokudera =)

Gokudera starts to feel tingly all over. With each text he gets, his breath hitches a little, and he finds it harder and harder to keep reading. He wonders if he really did fall asleep back on that futon, because surely a bunch of friends can't send him texts all at the same time on a random day that they apparently know as his birthday; let alone the fact that his phone is supposed to be _very very dead_. Even in his altered mental state, he knows it to be impossible.

Trembling now, he eventually makes the decision to turn his phone back off, dismiss this phenomenon, and try to get to sleep like he was planning before. His thumb floats over to the power button, until he sees that yet another new message has come in, and he freezes.

**Tenth: **look outside, gokuderakun.

He stares at it for a long moment, carefully considering all the curves and lines of all the letters, even after the screen fades to black due to inactivity. His throat feels tight; his legs feel limp. Thoughts cycle through his mind again about the strangeness of this, and he finds that even after examining the font thoroughly he still doesn't comprehend a bit of the message. He presses the center button and reads it again. _Look outside_.

For a moment, he swears he had forgotten that there was an outside, a place different from this dim, dingy rut he has locked himself in. Somewhere brighter and warmer. Somewhere he can be irrelevant, and yet cared for deeply at the same time.

Gokudera is never one to ignore his Tenth, so obediently, he makes his way to the window at the back of the room. He yanks the cord to send the blinds flying up and unhinges the three sets of locks along the frame before wheeling the pane open and sticking his head out, carefully tapping his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

Four stories worth of stairs is all that separates him now from the herd of people down below. There must be ten, at least. They're all familiar faces with warm smiles and earnest eyes that he's grown fond of, chiefest among them being those of the Tenth, whose eyes are open wide, laughing at the rightfully blinding sunlight.

"Release them," the Tenth calls, and instantly, the strings in everyone's hands become free. A layer of plump red balloons floats up through the sky. Time stops for but a second when the balloons pass right in front of Gokudera, and he only wishes his arms were several feet longer so he could reach out and touch them before they fly away. There's a silly feeling at the base of his neck – if he didn't know he couldn't cry, he would think he was about to – as he watches them rise until they're out of his sight completely.

He glances back down to see everyone grinning expectantly at him. "Come down, Gokudera-kun!" Tsuna yells.

Gokudera responds in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, though it bounces off the concrete and brick walls and metal staircase enough for everyone down below to hear. "A-are you sure? I'm still in the clothes I wore last night to bed."

"Just come on!" Tsuna says.

And again, Gokudera complies with orders. He steps over the windowsill while carefully avoiding knocking his head on the windowpane. Then he nimbly makes his way downward, swinging from platform to platform and riding the rails of all the staircases until he lands safely on his feet on the ground. His hair is uncombed; he wears an old T-shirt, baggy sweatpants and no shoes; he has glasses on instead of his usual contacts. He looks so plain and feels like crap. But none of that matters. The Tenth reaches forward and hugs him immediately, and the rest follow suit, and soon Gokudera is in the center of a giant mass of friends, feeling their aura of compassion and healing.

He figures, maybe birthdays are worth celebrating. Worth celebrating… not alone.

0o.o0o.o0

**Okay soooooooo there may be some OOC-ness on Tsuna's part. Just a _little_ bit. But I can't help it, 'cause dammit, that boy needs some confidence! If there are any other errors, please tell me. I wrote this in present tense but some past tense may have snuck in there at some parts because I got distracted a few times and I didn't proofread. ): **


End file.
